Zapata County area

Population and density of Zapata County

The Census Bureau estimates that 13,753 people lived in Zapata County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,246 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #146 of 254 in Texas. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 13,889, the population has declined by 136 (−1%), compared with +8.8% for Texas as a whole.

With 998.4 square miles of land, that is 14 people per square mile (5.3 per km²), placing Zapata County #2,510 nationally for density and #153 in Texas. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Texas median is 22. Put another way, there are about 46 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Zapata County

Zapata County has no incorporated cities, towns or villages. All 13,753 of its residents live in unincorporated communities, which the Census Bureau describes as census-designated places rather than municipalities.

Metropolitan area

Zapata County is a central county of the Zapata, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area. Zapata County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 998.4 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #183 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #539 by population.

ZIP codes

5 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Zapata County; 3 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

7806778076783617854578564

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Zapata County

Zapata County shares a land border with 3 county equivalents. Each of them has more land than Zapata County. The largest neighbor is Webb County (3,361.5 mi²) and the smallest is Jim Hogg County (1,136.2 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Zapata County forms a block of 6,719.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.9%.

How big is Zapata County compared with U.S. states?

Zapata County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1 times as much. Texas’s county land could hold about 262 areas the size of Zapata County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 31.6 miles (50.9 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Zapata County?

Zapata County has more land than 2,538 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Zapata County at #711 nationally by total area, 27 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 5.6%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.5 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Zapata County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.